Microsoft has agreed to purchase Nokia’s mobile phone business for $7.2 billion. This acquisition is a part of Microsoft’s efforts to catapult forward in the mobile space, where its Windows software devices are lacking consumer adoption. Read more

Xiaomi, a booming Chinese phone vendor, reached 1 billion app downloads yesterday. Its Android-based app store, MIUI, has received 5 million daily downloads and gained 17 million active users within just a year of its launch. Read more

Google is projected to obtain a majority of all mobile ad revenue in 2013, according to Business Insider. This is Google’s second year in a row to surpass its competitors in the mobile ad space. Read more

Mobile commerce sales in the U.S. are expected to surpass $25 billion by the end of 2013. The primary drive for the growth is consumers using their mobile devices for more advanced functions such as digital commerce transactions. Read more

Facebook is slowly taking out tangible goods from its Gifts program, says an article by Mashable. Instead, the social network will focus on adding more merchants to its Facebook Cards, a reusable gift card that enables users to maintain monetary balances from various retailers Read more

Smartt’s approach of using the Brand Strategy Roadmap facilitated open, productive discussions. It gave us the confidence to proceed to the next step of web development because we had consensus on branding and long-term goals.